FYI, there is, what appears to my unskilled self, a great article on setting up an onboard internut system by an HP IT guy in the sept Latitude 38 - The West's Leading Sailing and Marine Magazine on page 106 under Connected Cruising. I don't think the sept issue is online yet but you can download the pdf now.

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"The nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end." ---Aldous Huxley

The proper way to amplify your WiFi signal is to use an external amplifer either powered via USB (like the Alfa 500 mw unit, which works great) or have a separate amplifer that uses power over ethernet, POE. you then plug one end of amp into a port on your computer and the other to the antenna. You really want to keep the connection between the amp and the antenna as short as possible to cut down on signal loss, so the PVC pipe is a good idea for sealing the electronics, but remember that the electronics gives off heat and if they get to hot they will burnout.
The Alfa amp is cheap, around $50 US and coupled with a $10 9dbi antenna with a 6 foot SMA cable is easy to set up and store and got me WiFi all over the Abacos last winter.

I'm unclear from your post -- are you getting the Cradlepoint message after you try and go to one of the unsecured Wifi portals? If so, George is exactly right and what you are seeing is someone's router (the Cradlepoint is a dsl/cable/broadband cellular router that has a Wifi antenna for a wireless LAN), and the router itself is not connected to a WAN source. That would be the error message it would give in such a situation.

If you have a Cradlepoint router that you're trying to access, you are successfully seeing the router, but since it is not hooked up to anything, you are getting the error message.

ID

P.S. I have one of the Cradlepoint routers and they are really pretty slick, but they are best used with a cellular air card. Those, too, are pretty slick and much nicer than Wifi, so long as you are in range. We've pulled in broadband as much as 10 miles off shore, with only a small antenna extended up the spreader. People say that with a better antenna and amplifier, they are pulling it in up to 20 miles, but the cost for that goes up a lot and wasn't worth it to us.

__________________Intentional Drifter

Observations are gold; hypotheses, silver; and conclusions, bronze.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.--Ben Franklin

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.--Daniel Patrick Moynihan

tiki-
A LAN is your equipment, on your side of a router or similar device. A WAN is a "wide area network" and the internet is probably the biggest WAN out there. The "internet" or ISP side of a router is the "WAN" connection side. No WAN connection, means the gateway address in the router hasn't been set up, or the router can't connect to an ISP, or something similar.
A cell phonebroadbandmodem connects to the cellular provider's WAN. Which could probably be called "a larger wider area LAN"...I'm sure there must be more than just a tradition that draws the line between the two terms, personally I've only known it as "eveyrthing on a LAN is in one locaiton with one owner" versus a "WAN" being, literally, something that covers a wider area, multiple locations, etc.

If you take a look on the web for how to use the TRACEROUTE (TRACERT) and PING tools, those can tell you where your connection is failing, i.e. in your computer, router, the wifi net you're trying to hook into...